


self-absorbed king

by crownedcarl



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Gen, Paranoia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-04
Updated: 2016-03-04
Packaged: 2018-05-24 16:29:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6159670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownedcarl/pseuds/crownedcarl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hannibal Lecter is gone. Frederick Chilton has bad dreams; dark dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	self-absorbed king

**Author's Note:**

> set vaguely after hannibal takes off after the many shenanigans at the end of s2
> 
> chilton is suffering from paranoia & mild delusions/hallucinations throughout this work. he is the focal point of this story; hannibal, will & alana are all mentioned to some degree but this is, in essence, a character study
> 
> title from rumi's 'the nothing of roselight'

There are many things that he would like to believe in the aftermath of the carnage that Hannibal carves out for the people he left behind; Frederick would like to be able to look at the disfigured side of his face and consider this a victory where the scars merely mean that he managed to survive. He would sleep more easily, that way, if he could convince himself of that untruth.

He cannot. The scars that he bears are ugly, jagged things and the damage itself is irreparable. Will Graham has a tortured mind and a deep slash across his belly that – somehow – presents itself with an odd tenderness, as if Hannibal truly loved him in the moment that he had sunk a knife into his flesh and left him bleeding out on the floor.

Frederick is a prideful man and sometimes, he wonders if he should be jealous. Will Graham has suffered more than any of them at Hannibal’s hands, but he was the only one that Hannibal cared about in the slightest – and Frederick is grateful, at least, that Hannibal never got into his head. He has a hard enough time coping, as it is.

-

He has bad dreams; dark dreams.

-

Hannibal Lecter is gone. Frederick expects that to come as a relief, but it sits as a heavy weight in his stomach, like a fist tightening incrementally every day, his heartbeat growing gradually louder and louder. It sounds like a beast pounding on some hidden inner door, demanding to be released, but Frederick swallows back the bile and the paranoia and simply pretends that it isn’t there at all.

He swears that Hannibal is still here, somehow, his shape elongated in the twisting shadows stretching out across the floor. He imagines Hannibal baring his teeth in a smile and Frederick wonders if perhaps death would have been kinder than this.

-

He can’t bear the thought of spending even an hour in his own house. He remembers unlocking the door on what should have been as normal as any other day and he remembers being confronted by the horrors within; Frederick can repeat mantras all day long to convince himself that he is safe and that nobody is after him, but that is simply not true. There is something inside his head that is working against him and Hannibal Lecter planted that seed.

Frederick wonders what is worse – to be the coward that cannot stomach living in his own house, or the coward that chooses to stay simply because there is nowhere else to go. He wonders if Hannibal knows that he is still, inexplicably, winning.

-

Will Graham has left and Alana Bloom – his friend, his almost-lover, his maybe – is incapacitated, still. Frederick absently thinks of all the dogs that Graham has taken in and for a brief moment, a flicker of worry lights him up inside.

He drives. Frederick feels the safest when he is neither here nor there; he enjoys being hard to pinpoint, if only to soothe his own mangled psyche, but on the long drive to Wolf Trap and the Graham residence, Frederick feels more settled within his own body than he has in months. In the driveway, he sits for a very long time; when the dogs begin to whine and bark inside, he makes his way gingerly onto the porch, and as far as he can tell the dogs all look very healthy, if helplessly lonely and abandoned.

It would be this, he thinks without any trace of amusement – it would be this which ends up forcing him to draw a parallel between the mutts and himself.

-

Frederick Chilton used to believe that he knew the worst cruelty that the world had to offer; after all, he housed the evil of a dozen killers at any given time and at any given time, they weren’t at all shy about going into explicit, gory detail about what they would like to do to him. He remembers that and he feels maddeningly foolish, his pride left tattered somewhere at his feet, his fingers tightening on the handle of his cane.

This is what his hubris has led him to: a deliberate destruction so wholly complete that he almost can’t remember who he was before it. He was not much, before, but he is even less, now.

He thinks that he should feel betrayed, in the end, but betrayal is something you feel when a friend turns against you. Hannibal was never his friend – no matter what Frederick would like to believe, Hannibal Lecter never considered him anything other than a means to an end.

The Frederick Chilton he was before would have taken offense at that. The Frederick Chilton that he is now only laughs.

-

Frederick doesn’t speak to the press. He thinks that his former colleagues must be laughing at him, regarding that; he has always enjoyed the spotlight, even when it was never rightfully his, but after Gideon and after Hannibal, Frederick can’t muster the energy to smile and chatter and demand attention. He has nothing to say.

He tires easily, these days, a heaviness sitting atop his shoulders that has taken to whispering to him at night. He has no reason to be afraid of Hannibal returning for him – there would be no reason for that scenario to play out. Hannibal cares less about him than he cares about any of his other victims; those, he would eat, after he killed them by his own hand. He let Frederick be shot by a woman with a deranged mind he twisted himself and he didn’t stay long enough to find out if Frederick was alive or not.

Those are the things that plague his mind: the tugging of _why did he do it_ and _why me, it could have been anyone_ –

Those are useless thoughts.

-

The mirror shows only the truth. He knows that much, but in the chilly morning air, shaping a trembling hand to the hollow of his damaged cheek feels like one final insult. Frederick was never more than averagely handsome, but he wore it well; he knew what to draw attention to and what to distract from, but after the bullet that tore through his face, there isn’t much left of him that isn’t scarred.

Mason Verger was a disgusting man whom Hannibal gave a face to match his atrocities; Mason Verger deserved what Hannibal did to him, but Frederick doesn’t understand why it had to happen to _him_. He already bears the scars from Gideon beneath his clothes; a chill runs through him at the thought that Gideon didn’t necessarily care about whether he lived or died, but only hoped for Frederick to live in order to extend his torment. Hannibal is a different breed. The end result did not matter to him, as long as Frederick was whom everyone would be pointing their fingers at.

He does not punch the mirror, but he clenches his fingers tightly around the edges of the sink, waiting for something to crack.

-

Frederick has never been the kind of man to dwell upon the past. He finds it to be an exercise in futility, recalling everything that he could have done differently and perhaps expecting a different outcome.

He knows that if he had been less of a narcissist, he could have prevented the events that led to Abel Gideon slaughtering his way through hospital orderlies, nurses and cops. He knows that, now, and he regrets.

Above all else, Frederick regrets.

-

He does not remember much about the first time that he met Hannibal Lecter. He remembers this: the tug of allure sitting low in his stomach, simmering quietly as he watched Hannibal from across the room. Frederick is a man of metaphors and he likens that attraction to the pull a moth feels towards a flame, chasing it ever higher until it becomes his downfall.

He remembers this – Hannibal’s eyes in the low light, his smile a subtle, intimate thing. On nights like this, Frederick wishes that he had the means to forget.


End file.
